Destroyed and Detained : Sara Martin Series

by Danelle Helget

  I disconnected. “Jodi, that was your boyfriend on the phone. He’s on his way! You must be so relieved,” I said snidely.

  She looked down and shook her head. She was defeated. I loved it.

  “Well, now what, Captain?” Long John asked as he looked at Jodi sympathetically. What’s up with that? I think he feels sorry for her.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” Captain Morgan said. “You fools told me she was their friend.”

  “Well, she was just walking down the driveway, and is about their age, and is a girl, so I just assumed—” Long John said.

  “You assumed wrong,” I cut him off. “Keep her.”

  The pirates all looked at each other and discussed it. “We can’t just let her go. She’ll report us to the police.”

  Jodi shook her head and made some grunting noises.

  “I can’t be sure, because she’s crazy and delusional, but I do know she’s wanted in this county on trespassing charges already, so she probably won’t report you,” I said.

  “Don’t count on it. The bitch can’t be trusted. We know that first-hand. She’s blackmailing Sara as we speak,” Tannya told them.

  “So now what?” Flying Dutchman asked.

  “So give us the treasure and we won’t kill her!” Captain Morgan said.

  I wrinkled my eyebrows at him. His own crew looked shocked by his words and Jodi looked at me with concern. I didn’t like her and wished she drop off the face of the Earth but I didn’t want to see her get hurt.

  “No, go ahead and kill her. We don’t like her.” I heard myself say. “Now, is there anything else we can help you with?”

  Everyone looked at me. “Okay then, we’ll chat with you later,” I said and started the motor and turned around and sat in my seat.

  “Permission to come aboard,” I heard Captain Morgan say. His tone was different. It made the hair on my neck stand up. I heard a gasp from Miss Kitty. I didn’t turn around but I looked at Tannya’s face and knew.

  “Come about!” Flying Dutchman said sternly. That’s when I turned around. Captain had a gun. It was an old fashioned, long barrel pistol.

  “What the fuck, Morgan? This is a game. Guns are not allowed!” Val said.

  “Neither are cannonballs!” he shot back. He was pointing the pistol in our direction.

  He had us there. “This was a game. It’s not anymore!” he growled. While he was talking, the other two were rowing closer. When they got up next to us, he stood up and opened the door on the pontoon and stepped aboard.

  “Permission not granted.” Damn my evil side! It’s like I had no control over my voice. Part of me was not afraid of that gun. The other part was trying to reason. This was not the first time someone had pointed a gun at me, so I wasn’t as upset as Miss Kitty, Tannya, and Val looked.

  “Put the gun down,” Tannya said, “Or I drop it.”

  We all shot our heads in her direction. She was standing back by the treasure and had two black plastic wrapped packages in her hands. She was holding them over the water. I grinned at her. “Well played, Captain Tytass,” I said and nodded.

  “DON’T!” I heard Morgan say. Then I felt him grab my hair. He pulled me back against him and pointed the gun at me. Shit. I was mentally kicking myself for never taking the self-defense classes that Community Ed always offered. I knew there was a really swift way to get out of this but I couldn’t remember how it went.

  Oddly though, I wasn’t afraid of him, just pissed that he was in control. “Get on the boat, Dutchman,” he ordered.

  “Okay, now wait a minute. This boat can’t hold the weight of all of us and the cannon and the treasure,” I said calmly. “So just start tossing it, Tannya.”

  “NO! DON’T” He pulled my hair harder and took the safety off the gun. “Dutchman, we’re taking the boat! Get them into the raft and our stuff on here! Long John, hold the boat.”

  Dutchman boarded and shoved Aunt Val towards the raft. She climbed in and sat down. Then he grabbed Miss Kitty by the arm.

  “Get your paws off me,” she said and shrugged free of his grip.

  “Go!” He yelled at her meanly.

  “I’m going!” she said. Then she gathered up the mugs, cider, and Schnapps and climbed into the raft. Tannya was still standing there with the packages. Morgan shoved me towards the raft. I got in. Dang it, I was pissed! But he did have a gun. I mentally told my evil twin that was trying to tell me to shove him overboard to calm down. Dutchman went over to Tannya and yanked her arm. She looked pissed, too. She dropped the one package that was still in her hand on the floor of the pontoon and stomped to the raft.

  “I ain’t getting in with Vagina in there. She’s yours. You take her with you!” she said to Morgan, standing at the door.

  “Get in!” Dutchman said and shoved her.

  “No, get her out first!”

  “We don’t want her either!” Morgan said.

  I looked over and stuck my tongue out at Jodi. She was sitting on the other side of Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty saw me and did it too. Jodi rolled her eyes. Val was on her other side.

  “NOW!” Morgan yelled.

  “You’re pissing me off. You ain’t going to get away with this,” Tannya mumbled and moved towards the edge of the boat. She sat on the edge of the pontoon and then, when she should have moved to sit, she tried to stand and slipped. She plopped hard into the raft. She fell into the middle and landed on her belly with her head on Jodi’s leg.

  “Ugh,” now I got Vagina cooties on my face!” she said and rubbed her cheek as she sat up. We all laughed, and Jodi rolled her eyes again. I stuck my tongue out at her again. Gosh that felt good. I hadn’t stuck my tongue out in years, and there was some real satisfaction in it. I understood why kids did it now. It was the three-year-old’s equivalent of flipping someone the bird.

  And there we sat … five girls in a raft. Three had matching sweatshirts. One was dressed as a pirate and one tied up and gagged. I was sitting back with my feet stretched out in the middle. I noticed they’d left the oars. Miss Kitty was to my left, then Jodi, then Val, then Tannya.

  The Ocean’s Lie crew was now on Ella Vashow. We all looked in that direction as they started the motor and turned towards the ship. “Sayonara!” Long John yelled and waved.

  “That’s my name,” I mumbled. I noticed he locked eyes with Jodi and his face changed to kind of a sad look.

  I looked at Tannya. She was all situated in her spot now. “What now, Captain Tytass?” I asked in a pirate voice.

  “I need a drink!” Miss Kitty said and started filling up the mugs. There was only enough for half a glass for everyone, so she went a bit heavier on the Schnapps this time.

  Tannya had her arms across her chest. “Humph. Assholes,” she said and then she grinned. I looked in her eyes trying to figure out what she was thinking.

  “At least I got this,” she said and pulled out a black plastic wrapped package from her shirt.

  “Whoa! Nice!” I said.

  Jodi started mumbling and shaking her head. “Should I take the bandana off?” Val asked, reaching toward Jodi.

  “NO!” The three of us shouted in unison.

  “It stays on. She never has anything good to say anyway, do ya?” I asked her with a smirk. She growled back at me. I crawled over to her and put my head next to hers. “What’s that? I’m sorry, I can’t understand you! You got something in your mouth.” I was in her face teasing her. She was getting pissed, which made me happy. “You just sit there and look pretty. Your boyfriend’s coming soon. I’m sure he can’t wait to see you again.” She glared at me and then snapped her head forward and head-butted me right on the corner of my eye socket.

  “OWW! You stupid bitch!” I tried to slap her face but I only got part of the side of her head because Miss Kitty and Val dove on me. I was fighting to get at her. I just wanted one good punch, but Miss Kitty and Val both held me down until I agreed not to touch her. I finally relaxed and sat up.

  “You gotta lotta nerve!�
� Tannya said to her, “We could throw your ass overboard. I bet it’d be weeks before anyone would even miss you!”

  “Watch your back!” I told her with a finger point. Then I took what was left of my cold cider, which I thought I was going to slam, but I threw it in Jodi’s face instead. I was as surprised as everyone else. They all looked at me. I shrugged.

  “Not sure what happened there,” I told them with a confused look.

  “All right, we need to get out of this raft before someone gets killed,” Val said. “Let’s start paddling back to the dock.”

  “Oh, hell no!” Tannya said. “This ain’t over.”

  “No, it’s not,” I agreed. “I want my boat back, and I’m returning Jodi. She’s not getting back on my property.” I touched my eye. I could already feel it swelling up.

  “Let’s go then!” Tannya said with a fist pump. “Val and Sara, grab the oars and start us on our way. TO THE SHIP!”

  21

  First thing Tannya did when we started paddling was open up the package. It was a small, plastic, Tupperware box, about the size of a child’s shoe box. Inside was a gallon-sized Ziplock with a bunch of tissue paper. She set it out and carefully unwrapped it. It was a roll, and as she unrolled it she came across a gold necklace. “Wow,” she said. “This looks real.” She passed it around to us. We agreed, it did look real. There were more gold items in there too. She wrapped the necklace back up and put it back in the Ziploc and then in the container.

  While we were rowing out to the ship, we discussed our plan. We were about two football fields’ length behind the pontoon. The crew of Ocean’s Lie looked like they were almost there and planning to board.

  The wooden rowboat was still on land over by the house. We didn’t see any movement over there, so we weren’t sure what Scooter was up to. Miss Kitty took over rowing for a bit because Val’s arms got tired. There was no wind and the raft was round so it was really hard to get it to move.

  “Here’s what we do,” Tannya said. “We sneak up and take back the pontoon. We’ll leave Vagina in the boat and then go back to the house and hide the treasure.”

  “Where?” Aunt Val asked.

  “I know where!” I said. “But I can’t tell you in front of this bitch.” I looked at Jodi and again stuck my tongue out at her. Then I chuckled. Tongues were so offensive.This had amazing power. She turned her half-open eyes away from me. She made two short grunting noises that sounded a lot like “fuck you,” but I ignored it. I loved this. She was like my prisoner, except I didn’t do it.

  We watched as the three men started up the rope ladder. “Geez, Captain should have pulled that up,” Val pointed out.

  “I suppose he was expecting Scooter to return shortly,” Miss Kitty answered.

  “Hey, we should all turn our phones on silent when we get close. We don’t want to have them ring,” Miss Kitty suggested.

  We each reached in our pockets and turned them off. “Ya know, if they were good pirates, they’d have taken those too,” Val said.

  “Hey, Vagina!” Tannya said. “You got a phone too?”

  “She sure does! She’s been busy using it the last couple days a lot, haven’t ya?” I said. I crawled over to her and pushed her down so she was laying back. I reached in her pocket and pulled one out. It was the most recent Apple iPhone. “Wow, nice phone! Did you just get this? It’s a great upgrade,” I told to her. “Gosh, I’m not even sure how to use these things,” I said, fumbling around with it. “How do you silence it?” I asked, turning and flipping it obnoxiously. “OOPS!” I said sarcastically as it slipped out of my hand and into the lake.

  I leaned over the raft and looked. “Gosh, so sorry, it went straight to the bottom.” I tilted my head. “I hope you didn’t need it for anything.” I looked back at my crew. They were all smiling at me in disbelief. “At least we know it’ll be silent now.”

  “Indeed,” Miss Kitty said.

  I looked at the time on my phone. It was five thirty. I silenced it and put it back in my pocket. We started rowing again. We were almost to the ship and pontoon. We couldn’t see or hear anything which I guess was good.

  “I wish we’d brought a bug or mini camera with,” Miss Kitty said.

  “Oh, yeah, shoot. That’d have been handy,” I said.

  Tannya nodded. “Get us close to the pontoon.” We did our best to row up to it. Within a few minutes we had climbed aboard and untied the pontoon, then re-tied the raft to the ship’s ladder.

  Jodi was still sitting in the raft. She started making noise and wiggling around. “Oh, silly us,” I said sarcastically. “Jodi’s right, we did forget something.” I maneuvered the raft to the door of the pontoon and stepped back onto to it. She looked relived. “Thanks for the reminder, not like you’re going to use it,” I said and picked up the half empty bottle of Schnapps. I patted her on the head. “It was good to see you again. You should stop by more often. This was fun!” I told her. Then I got back on the pontoon. I started the motor and Tannya pushed us off.

  “Bubye, Jodi. Hope you enjoyed one Ella Vashow!” Miss Kitty said, using her arms like Vanna White to show her the name on the panels. Jodi was shaking her head and yelling something, but we couldn’t make it out. We all blew kisses and waved. As we putted slowly home I suggested we turn our phones back on.

  Tannya noticed that across the lake, Scooter was in the rowboat going back to the ship. He’d be in for a surprise. We didn’t see anything large in the boat so we didn’t know what he went back for.

  We approached the dock and quickly tied up. “The spot that I wanted to hide it is in the cave that’s out in the woods,” I told them as we stood there on the dock contemplating our next move.

  “The one the bodies were in?” Tannya asked.

  Well, that made it sound bad. “Um, yeah, no one would find it there. The problem is it’d take us a long time.”

  “How about in the house,” Val suggested. “They wouldn’t just break in. If we leave it out here they’ll find it for sure.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not like your dog’ll protect it for us. Ha ha,” Miss Kitty laughed. I was slightly offended, but I was trying to control my mood swings, so I didn’t tell her what a piece of worthless junk her dog was.

  “How about the washer and dryer? You never see a robber look in there,” Tannya said. We all looked at her. “Right? When was the last time you watched a movie and someone opened the door on a washer when they were ransacking the house?”

  “She’s right,” I said. “Let’s do that, at least for now. We need to hurry though, before they notice us. No one’s been on the ship’s deck yet, as far as I can tell.” We looked over and noticed Scooter was in the raft. I was sure he was cutting Jodi loose.

  We all grabbed packages and went into the house. The girls set them on the floor and went back out for more. It only took two trips with all of us helping. I took the gold blankets and stuffed animals from the dryer and put them in the trash and then put the packages in the washing machine and the dryer, completely filling them. We still had more left so I hid the rest in my closet behind my sweaters that were folded on the floor.

  It was chilly in the house, so I made a fire. We locked all the doors and checked all the windows to make sure that they were all locked, too.

  I took another of the packages, and we opened it. Inside that one was jewelry too, but it wasn’t junk. It looked brand new. There was everything from gold, to silver, to white gold, and even diamond studded stuff in there.

  “This just got real!” Val said. “That isn’t the kind of stuff I was helping to package. This explains why he was so protective of it.”

  “Why would he hide it in the lake?” I asked. “Why not just bury it, or put it in a safe deposit box? I don’t get it.”

  Tannya put her hand on her hip. “Like I said, he’s trying to play this off as a game. But there’s something real here, and I think that Ocean’s Lie knows it.”

  “This is getting to be too much to process. I think we
should stop drinking and get some food in our stomachs,” I said.

  After we all settled around the island countertop I pulled some snacks out, and we cut into one of the pies. The pie was amazing. We finished the whole thing, and then I made a pot of coffee. We’d all been a bit too excited on the pontoon and had polished off half a bottle of Schnapps, and it was only six o’clock. We laughed and talked loudly, in our buzzed state, about the day. And then we discussed what to do about Jodi. There was some talk about calling Rex, but I was pretty sure we might be in trouble too, so I didn’t know if I wanted to do that.

  “They have a gun. This is beyond a LARP now. I’m not sure, but I think there is something else going on here,” Val said.

  “I agree.” Miss Kitty said.

  “Me too, especially since that phone call from Wayde about not getting involved,” I said.

  My phone rang. I looked at the screen. Rex.

  “Answer it!”

  “No, don’t!”

  “If you do, he’s going to have to investigate.”

  “We aren’t exactly innocent here!”

  They were all talking at once, and I wasn’t sure what to do, so I panicked and set it down on the counter. We all stared at it in silence until it went quiet. No one said anything for a few seconds after it stopped. Then it beeped, indicating a message.

  I picked it up and read it aloud: “I’m on my way over.”

  “Shiiiiit,” I said quietly.

  “We need a plan!” Tannya said.

  “What is with you and the plans?” Miss Kitty snapped.

  “I’m just sayin’ we need to get our story straight,” Tannya told her.

  “I think in this case we all plead the fifth. I really have enough to deal with already. I don’t want anything new on my record,” Val said.

  “It’s probably best to answer as few questions as we can,” Tannya said. “We’ll let Sara do the talking.” She jabbed her elbow at me.

  I took the binoculars off the table and pulled the blinds slightly open. I couldn’t see any action on the ship, and Jodi was still in the raft, but her hands were in front of her and her bandana was off. She was just sitting there. I giggled to myself quietly. It was starting to get dark, and I bet she was getting chilly, too. This sure would teach her to mess with me again.